For That and So Many Reasons
by MannyZanders
Summary: Lulu had so many reasons to hate her. SpinMax


Lulu's never really told Johnny Zacchara when it was exactly that she began to long for something more in her relationship with him. But she knows he's pretty sure it's around the time she _accidentally _found the letters. Sure she knows that they were meant to be private, a secret to be shared by only sender and its intended reader, but it's not her fault that Maxie left them lying in plain sight. Okay, so maybe not so much in plain sight as in a small lockbox buried under carefully piled blankets and clothes in a dark and concealed corner of Maxie's closet, but really – it's not as if Lulu can help that Maxie was so careless and chose such an easily determined code. After all it only took her forty-five minutes before finding success with Georgie's birthday.

Johnny had the nerve to actually be shocked and a little appalled that she'd broken into _The Wounded One's_home and rifled through all her personal belongings, but Lulu didn't feel guilty - or sorry – this was Maxie they were talking about after all. Maxie the baby-faker, Maxie the drug supplier, Maxie the marriage wrecker. And for that, and so many other reasons, Lulu hated Maxie Jones. And she had every right to, and no one – not even Spinelli – would ever convince her otherwise. Maxie, or _Maximista _as Spinelli had taken to calling her, deserved no sympathy or regard, and if she thought for one second that Lulu was just going to stand idly by and let her continue to use and deceive Lulu's best friend – well, then Maxie Jones definitely had another thing coming.

And it's not as if she hadn't tried to reason with Spinelli, tried to make him see Maxie for whom and what she really was. As the weeks had turned to months and Maxie and Spinelli only seemed to be getting closer every passing day, Lulu had even gone to Jason for support and it was only when she'd been told in no certain terms by the conversationally challenged hit man to "_butt the hell out of Spinelli's life"_ and more than just a little forcibly shown the door that she'd decided to take matters into her own hands.

It hadn't even been that difficult to break into the Police Commissioner's home, she was a Spencer after all, and though she wasn't entirely certain what it was exactly she was hoping to find, she knew she just had to find a way to finally make Spinelli see the light before he fell any deeper into Maxie's dark spell.

Or at the very least, get him to see that there _was_ a dark spell. There just had to be, it was Maxie after all. Maxie didn't do anything without an ulterior motive, and it was up to Lulu to protect her friend and expose the blonde witch for the bitch she truly was. What she hadn't been prepared to find when she opened up the lockbox were its contents. Among the assorted pictures and mementos of Maxie's lost loves Jesse and Coop were the letters.

Letters from Spinelli to Maxie, iletters, hand-written letters/i and not text messages , not even printed out email messages, but Spinelli's flowing handwriting filling the pages. Her favorite, or the one she hates the most, it really depends on the day and her most current fight with Johnny, was the one obviously handled the most by the reader, it's pages slightly crinkled and blurry in spots was the first one she'd read…

_My dearest Maximista,_

_The Jackal sits here with the Master in the City most Windy and laments the missing part of himself._

_And before the Maximista can demand a translation, it is you my Inquisitive Blonde One that has The Jackal most melancholy._

_And it is his heart that the Assassin of the Cyber World is missing this quiet and uneventful evening. For it is not merely within the hands of the Maximista most beautiful that it resides, it is the Maximista herself. You are my heart and you carry within you two hearts my Beautiful Blonde One – yours and my own._

_But the Jackal finds much comfort in this knowledge for my Maximista will guard said heart most diligently and keep it safe and much loved. As she is loved most fiercely by its original owner. It has been yours these past many months now my Flirty Fashionista and shall in eternity reside in your grasp._

_It is the Jackals most fervent wish that the Maximista is not missing the Jackal as he is missing her, because that is an ache, a void he wishes will never again be felt by his Maximista. And you are mine Maxie, just as surely as I am yours._

_Stone Cold assures the Jackal that we shall not be long here, but though it has only been twelve hours since I last beheld your beautiful face – it has been twelve torturous hours too long and I count the hours, the minutes, the seconds until we are together again. So stay safe My Maximista, for harm befalling The Jackal's heart is a prospect most terrifying._

_Yours,_

_Damien M. Spinelli_

Okay, so as love letters go it was a little - well…Spinelli, but the sentiment the heart of it clearly spoke of a man honestly in love with a woman whom he believed loved him in return. And it was that realization that hurt Lulu the most.

Not that Spinelli loved Maxie, well maybe it was a little bit of that – in her honest moments Lulu could admit that she had always just assumed that she would hold the number one place in her friends heart and faced with the proof to the opposite, it stung more than just a little. But mainly, it was just the fact that it was _Maxie_. Of all people, nobody deserved all that true devotion and pure unconditional love, less than Maxie Jones. And there was no way in hell that Maxie had that kind of honest emotion in her shallow manipulative heart to give in return.

And yet.

Lulu couldn't deny that Maxie had changed, not completely of course, she was still spiteful, sarcastic and more than a little bitchy but as her friendship with Spinelli had progressed she had become less and less the mean-spirited, viper-tongued bitch that Lulu – and Spinelli himself – had always known and loathed.

And after that day, Lulu had taken to carefully observing the pair. She was never quite sure how she had for so long missed the fact that her friend was in love. Because it was there, plain for anyone to see. It was in the fractional widening of Spinelli's grin whenever Maxie entered a room, it was the softening of his voice whenever he uttered the name Maximista, the constant presence of Maxie at Jason's – just the fact that Maxie's mere presence was tolerated at the Penthouse should have clued her in far before then that the devious blonde whirlwind had wormed her way into a more permanent place in Spinelli's life. It showed in Spinelli's obvious delight in constantly coming to Maxie's rescue, and if Lulu had ever bothered to notice she would have seen it in her every day to day conversations with Spinelli. He could barely string together three to four sentences without Maxie's name somehow coming up accompanied by a goofy grin and faraway look in his eyes.

She still shivered in disgust from time to time at the thought of the obviously deep and intimate nature of Maxie and Spinelli's relationship, but more and more she found herself envying it, especially in comparison to her own relationships.

She knew Johnny cared about – maybe even loved? – her, but deep in her heart she knew that if it ever came down to a choice between her or his family, Johnny would pick his promiscuous black-hearted sister over Lulu every time. At one time she would have taken comfort in the knowledge that Spinelli's gratitude, hero-worship and brotherly love for Jason would invariably ensure that Maxie too always came second to the man who loved her. But she wasn't so sure anymore.

Now that Lulu's eyes were opened, she could see that it wasn't just quirky hacker that the hitman had reluctantly taken under his wing. Somehow, someway Maxie had managed to connive her way into a makeshift family. She had Sam who would defend her friend to the bitter end, she had Spinelli who would die for her and now it seemed she had Jason who would kill for her. It just wasn't fair. Lulu had a half-insane brother that talked to walls, another brother that loved her but half the time seemed more annoyed with her than anything, and parents that together barely constituted half a parent on a good day.

And Lulu's begun to think that maybe Spinelli would never have to choose between Jason and Maxie, because after reading his letters and watching him with Maxie – well, Lulu thinks maybe there would never be a choice to make, because Spinelli's already made it.

And for that, and so many other reasons, she hates Maxie Jones. She really does. Before she found the letters, she'd been happy. She had Johnny, sure they had their ups and downs, but she was happy. She was in love but know she can't help but think that Maxie has the life, the makeshift family, the love that should have been Lulu's. And she blames Maxie for that, for making her yearn for something beyond the adrenaline-rush that is her relationship with Johnny Zacchara.

She knows she loves Johnny, she really does but she can't help but compare it to the kind of pure, intense love that Spinelli so clearly has for her arch-enemy.

And for that, and so many other reasons, she hates Maxie Jones.


End file.
